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Christianity
Explored – Week 7
What
is a Christian?
We have been
saying throughout this course that Christianity is Christ. It is a relationship with Jesus. So we’ve been introducing Jesus to you
throughout the course and you’ve been reading about Him in Mark’s
Gospel. And tonight, we’re going to
offer you the opportunity to become a Christian. At the end we’re going to pray a prayer
which you can echo quietly in your heart – it’s a prayer that asks Jesus into
your life to save you and to lead you.
But before
anyone makes that kind of decision – there are three questions that need
an answer. You need to know: Who
is Jesus? Why did He come? And what does it mean to follow
Him? You’d be mad to follow Jesus
if you didn’t know the answers to those three questions – Who is
Jesus? Why did He come? And what does it mean to follow Him?
Well those
questions are answered by Mark chapter 8, so let’s turn there. Mark chapter 8 verses 27-38.
Mark 8:27 Jesus and
his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the
way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" 28 They
replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still
others, one of the prophets." 29 "But what about
you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered,
"You are the Christ." {Or Messiah. "The Christ"
(Greek) and "the Messiah" (Hebrew) both mean "the Anointed
One".} 30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer
many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of
the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32
He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke
him. 33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he
rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not
have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." 34
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said:
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life
will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will
save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world,
yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange
for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this
adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him
when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."
So let’s see
how this passage answers our three questions. Firstly, Who is Jesus?
Well in verse
27 Jesus does a straw poll, He wants to know what the word on the street
is. So He asks “Who do people say
that I am?” He’s asking for an
opinion poll here. And the
disciples have done their research so they tell Jesus, v28:
"Some say John
the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the
prophets."
Now those are
some extraordinary answers. John
the Baptist had died back in Mark chapter 6. Elijah had been dead for
centuries. But for those who lived
around Jesus, who saw what He did and heard how He taught, they had no
earthly explanation for Jesus.
Because they had seen Him heal every sickness ever brought to Him,
He answered every question ever asked of Him, He drove out evil spirits
with a word, He stilled a hurricane, He rose a
little girl from the dead the way you or I would wake the sleeping. He took her by the hand and said to a
dead girl – ‘Come on honey, it’s time to get up’ and she rose up from the
dead.
Those who saw
Jesus do these things could not explain Jesus in earthly terms. His supporters explained Him as a great
prophet back from the dead. Of
course His enemies accused Him
of having evil powers straight
from hell. But whether they
thought He was from heaven or hell – no-one who saw Jesus had an earthly
explanation for Jesus. He’s just
too big for earthly explanations.
What’s your explanation
for Jesus? Who do you say that He
is?
Because Jesus
doesn’t let us sit on the fence about this. That’s why in v29 – He asks
the personal question: “But what about YOU. Who do you say that I am?”
That question
is addressed to you and me this evening.
What about YOU? Who do you
say that Jesus is? Are you sure?
Peter was, He answered “You are the Christ.”
The Christ is
the Son of God – He is the King of Creation who made the world with His
Father and the Holy Spirit. Peter
gets it right – Jesus is the Christ.
And this is a huge moment in Mark’s Gospel. As you’ve been reading Mark you will
have noticed just how thick the disciples have been about this. And every time I do a Christianity
Explored we all have a good chuckle at the disciples and how stupid they
are. And that’s right – Jesus
describes their thickness with words like ‘Dull, blind, deaf,
hard-hearted.’ And so we all feel
very superior to the disciples. But
at some point you have to say: ‘Ok they’re thick, but what about
you? Do you see who Jesus is?’
Do you? Do you know that He is the Christ, the
Son of God? Your Creator come to earth?
Do you know that? It’s the
first question you have to answer if you want to become a Christian. You
need to know that Jesus is who He says He is – He’s the King of all
creation, and He’s your King. Do you know who Jesus is?
The second
question you need to answer is this:
Why did Jesus come?
This is
crucial. Jesus tells Peter in v30
to keep quiet about His identity, because Jesus needs to make it clear Why He came?
He’s
effectively saying to Peter: “Don’t tell the world I’m the Christ,
without knowing what kind of Christ I am.” Before we get the wrong idea, we MUST
know why Christ came. So in verse
31, Jesus tells us:
Verse 31: ‘He began
to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected
by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be
killed and after three days rise again’
That’s why
Jesus came. He came to die. In fact it is necessary that He dies. Do you see the two big musts there in
verse 31- the Son of Man must suffer many things and He must be
killed.
Why did Jesus
come? He came from heaven to earth to die. Why did He die?
Well flick on
a couple of chapters to Mark chapter 10 and verse 45. Here Jesus will tell us why He had to
die:
“For even the Son of
Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a
ransom for many.”
Jesus came to
give His life as a ransom. What is
a ransom? Well if you’re
kidnapped, the kidnappers will demand a ransom payment. If the ransom is paid, then you can go
free.
So clearly
Jesus thinks that we are prisoners – that we need freeing.
And as we’ve
gone through Mark’s gospel we’ve seen Jesus again and again speak of the
seriousness of sin and the consequences of that sin. Sin deserves death and judgment, and
given that we all have this heart problem, given that we all sin, we are
all prisoners, locked up in this prison of sin and death. But Jesus has the ransom payment. His death is the payment that frees
us.
On the cross,
He paid the price for my sin. And
so I go free. Can you imagine
yourself in a slave market. There are shackles around your hands
and feet. And people are bidding
for you – you’re just a peace of property with
a terrible future. But then a
stranger bids for you and pays an astronomical price. He values you – a slave – at an
incredible rate. He pays a ransom
that is unbelievably dear. And the
shackles come off, and you leave the slave-market in the company of this
stranger who has loved you and given everything for you.
That’s what
the cross means. Jesus pays the
ultimate price for you. He had
to die to free you – your sins are that bad. But He wanted to die to free you – you
are that loved. Why did Jesus
come? Well our sins are that bad,
but His love is that great – that He came to die for us.
Well then,
what’s our response? What would it
mean to follow Jesus?
That’s our
third question – we’ve asked ‘Who is Jesus?’ ‘Why did He come?’ and now, ‘What does
it mean to follow Him?’
Well think
about the slave-market again.
Jesus pays the ransom price and the chains fall off you and you
walk out of that slave-market with your head held high. Are you free?
Absolutely. You are as free as a woman or a man
ever could be. It is the most wonderful liberation possible. You are forgiven for ALL your sins –
past, present AND future. You are
GIVEN Christ’s Holy Spirit to live within you. You have absolutely NO fear of judgement
because Christ has paid for it all.
You are 100% assured of eternal life – Jesus the Judge has
guaranteed it. You are free
indeed.
But now think
again. As you leave the
slave-market and walk into the daylight, you leave in the company of
Jesus. And Jesus has paid for
you. Are you free?
No – you
belong to Jesus. You have been
bought wholesale – your body, your mind, your spirit. He now owns you. He owns your time and what you do with
it, He now owns your money and how you spend it, He owns your relationships
and how you conduct them. He has
paid a price that cannot be out-bid.
And you belong to Jesus.
Now how do
you feel about that? How you feel
about that will be entirely determined by what you think of Jesus. If you love Jesus – well you’ll be
thrilled to leave the slave-market in His company. You will want to go where He goes and do what He does. If you don’t love Jesus, if you
mistrust Jesus – then you won’t go with Him, you’ll remain in your chains
and you’ll refuse His ransom payment.
But what will
you decide? Will you follow Jesus
out of slavery? What will you
decide?
Back in Mark
8 verse 34 Jesus wants us to make an informed decision. He wants us to know what life will be
like if we decide to leave our slavery in His company. And so He advertises the Christian life
from verse 34. But it’s not your typical advertisement.
Verse 34:
‘Then He called the
crowd to Him along with His disciples and said: “If anyone would come
after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is
it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37
Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone
is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation,
the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory
with the holy angels."
Today Emma
showed me a full page advertisement in the newspaper. It said: Hotel rooms,
£1 per night. It sounded a
great deal until you read the fine print at the bottom. There were all kinds of conditions and
it turns out it’s only available for hotels in
Milton Keynes, Runcorn and Hull. I
don’t even know where Runcorn is, but I’m sure I don’t want to spend the
night there. You have to check the
fine print.
But Jesus –
when He advertises the Christian life – He doesn’t put anything in fine
print. Jesus is completely up
front. Everything is in bold
print, double underlined so that no-one can be in any doubt what it means
to follow Him. In these verses Jesus is not
sweet-talking us. He’s telling it
straight. If we’re going to follow
Jesus out of slavery, it means two big things:
We must deny
ourselves and we must not deny Jesus.
First, we
must deny ourselves. That’s v34:
“If anyone would come
after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Jesus says
following Him means denying our selves.
Notice Jesus doesn’t tell us to deny ourselves certain things. No, He says we must deny
OURSELVES. Jesus doesn’t want
certain things from us. He wants
US. We’ve been saying Christianity
is a relationship with Christ. And
in a good relationship you don’t give each other things – you give each
other yourselves. Jesus has offered
Himself
to us for free and forever.
And He wants US – not things from us – US. He has bought us at an incredible
price, He wants US. So as we walk
out of the slave-market with Jesus we are not saying to Jesus ‘Now,
Master, I suppose I’ll give you my Sunday mornings from now on and I
might give you a bit of my time and a bit of my money down the track, but
we’ll see how it goes.’ No, as we
walk out of the slave-market we’re saying ‘Jesus, I’m yours.’ I don’t belong to myself anymore.
We deny ourselves. And in v34, Jesus pictures that for us
with the image of taking up our cross.
When Jesus
took up His cross, He was saying to the world – I will serve
you. I will pay your debts. It’s my life for yours. The world, of course, says the
opposite. The world says: You will
serve me. You will pay my
debts. It’s your life for mine.
But Jesus
says – that is the way of slavery.
When we serve ourselves we are slaves. And Christ calls us out of that life
and into His much better life. It
sounds counter-intuitive but Jesus says, verse 35:
35 For whoever
wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for
me and for the gospel will save it.
When you give
yourself away – that’s when you find yourself, says Jesus. And it’s true isn’t it? The most free and stable and happy
people, the most self-possessed people in the world are the most
self-giving people. And ironically
the most self-absorbed people are the people least sure of
themselves. Look at Jesus’ life
and you see what true life looks like – it looks like denying yourself
and serving others.
So Jesus
says, if you’re following me, you’re following me out of this slavery to
self. Now you belong to me – and
so there are implications – our diaries don’t belong to us anymore, our
wallets and purses don’t belong to us anymore, Jesus gets to shape our
work, our leisure time, our personal views and relationship – to follow
Jesus is to deny ourselves and find true life.
So that’s the
first thing – Following Jesus means denying yourself
and, secondly, it means NOT denying Jesus.
That’s verse
38:
38 If anyone is
ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the
Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory
with the holy angels."
Can you imagine
walking out of the slave-market with Jesus – and as people look on you
say ‘He’s not with me. I’m not
with Him. I don’t know Him. He’s a bit crazy. Don’t worry, we’re not together.’ Can you imagine, Jesus out of the love
and goodness of His heart has freed us with an incredible payment and
then we’re ashamed of Him? It’s
unthinkable. And so Jesus calls us
NOT to deny Him. If we know who
Jesus is, we cannot be ashamed of Him or His words.
But of course
we’ll be tempted to. In the office
or at college or at the sports club or with friends or with family,
people will ask you ‘You’re not one of those Christians are you? You don’t agree with Jesus’ words on
this subject do you?’ And at
points the pressure to be ashamed of Jesus and His words will be
huge. Jesus warned His disciples
that if the world hated Him, the world WILL hate us, His followers. It is guaranteed. And so Jesus tells us
– ‘if you’re following me, you can’t leave the slave-market pretending
you don’t know me.’ If a person is
consistently ashamed of Jesus then you have to wonder whether they’ve
really been freed by Him at all – and if that’s the case Jesus will
disown all those who disown Him.
It’s only fair. But Jesus
wants to be up front from the outset.
If you leave the slave-market with Him, you leave as someone who
is proud of their Master and happily tells the world about Him.
What does it
mean to follow Jesus? Deny yourself – serve others. And don’t deny Jesus, be proud
of Him. Are you prepared to follow
Jesus tonight?
Do you know who He is?
Do you know why He
came?
Do you know what it
means to follow Him?
Why don’t we
discuss those questions , and perhaps especially
you can be thinking about what it would mean for you to deny yourself and
to not deny Jesus. And then at the
end I’ll give you an opportunity to respond.
What now? [After
discussion groups.]
As we close
our session, I want to say a few words about how we apply what we’ve
learned from the course.
Please turn
to Mark chapter 2:14
14 As Jesus
walked along, He saw Levi son of Alphaeus
sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," Jesus told
him, and Levi got up and followed Him.
Levi, whose other name is Matthew, was essentially a
white-collar criminal. Jesus comes
into his world and says ‘Come, follow me.’ And Levi gives it all up to be with
Jesus. And it’s not a joyless life
Jesus leads Him to – the first thing they do (in v15) is throw a dinner
party. But it is a life of denying
self and no denying Jesus.
Matthew left
a lucrative job, he would have upset a great
many people. And he was not
ashamed of Jesus – he even wrote one of the Gospels. Towards the end of his life he spread
the good news about Jesus to the Persians, Parthians
and Medes (parts of the world, some of us know). And it’s thought that he died a martyrs death – he died for following Christ. But it all started here – those two words
from Jesus: ‘Follow me’. And Levi
made a little calculation. On one
side there was ‘Life as he knew it’ and on the other side there was ‘being
with Jesus’. And being with Jesus
won. And Jesus was able to make
something incredible out of Matthew’s life – from white collar criminal
to Apostle and international evangelist – that’s the power of Jesus to
transform ANY life.
What about
you? If Jesus physically appeared
to you tonight and said ‘Come, Follow me’, would you? Would you want to leave the old life
and be with Jesus, living life His way?
Well we
believe that Jesus is here by His Spirit.
And He is calling out to people now to follow Him.
Now maybe
you’re already a Christian here tonight.
That’s brilliant, keep following – keep denying yourself and don’t
deny Jesus, He will make something wonderful out of our lives as we stick
close to Him.
Maybe you
wouldn’t call yourself a Christian and you’re still just not sure. Well keep asking your questions – keep
enquiring into Who is Jesus? Why did He come? And what does it mean to
follow Him?
But finally,
maybe you’re not a Christian but you’ve been persuaded and now you want
to follow Jesus. You won’t have
all your questions answered – no-one does. But you know enough of Jesus to trust
Him. You know who He is, you know
what He’s done for you and you want to be with Him, you want to follow
Him – denying yourself and not denying Him. If that’s you, then I want to give you
a prayer that you can pray if you are ready to follow Jesus.
It’s a prayer
I’m just going to read aloud once, so that you know exactly what it says. And then I’ll pray it with a gap after
each line, inviting you to echo it silently in your heart if you are
ready.
Lord Jesus,
- I recognise that you are the
Christ, the Son of God – you have the right to control my life.- I know
that I am a sinner - I am sorry for the way I have lived – Thank You for
the cross – Thank You that you died to forgive all my sins – Please now come
into my life - and take complete control of it. - Amen.
If you've
prayed that prayer a couple of things would be good to do tonight. One is to tell someone on your table so
we can help you get started in the Christian life- another thing that
would be great to do is before you go to bed- tell Jesus thankyou and
have a chat to Him.
If you
haven't yet felt ready to pray that prayer, it would be good if you also
had a chat to Jesus about it. Talk
the matter over with Him- and ask Him for help with things you find hard.
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